Making Hay in the Moon Light

At last a glorious weekend, very pleasant  weather indeed, not only that but the hay is off the field at last, it was late mind, by the time the contractors had bailed and wrapped it.

The whirring clunking noise of these mighty machines as they  lumber up the field is exactly like the mechanical drone of the monsters in the War of The World’s remake

 

 

They were off the field by about 10pm, but in previous years they have worked on till two or three in the morning.

 

And here is some hay they made earlier

It’s not like summer hay though, it doesn’t have that sweet, honeyed smell.

On the subject of honey, it wasn’t just the farmers who were busy at the weekend

Crystal Ball

The sun is shining, hooray, how long it will last who can say

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Let me gaze into my crystal ball; I don’t imagine this instrument is called a crystal ball, but a quick poke about on the ‘tinternet’ didn’t find me it’s scientific name, its a device for measuring the number of hours of sunshine, I found it in the grounds of Chatsworth house, next to the Stevenson screen.

As an indicator of how damp the atmosphere has been around here of late, and I can’t ever recall it happening before, our bedroom and bathroom doors wont close properly  (the wood has swollen) and the  jug of dried poppy heads at the top of the stairs has started to go moldy. We resist the temptation to put the heating on to dry the place out a bit,( it’s not cold just damp) the fact that the last delivery of heating oil was at a rate of 60p a litre (the lowest we have ever paid was .08p a litre) is incentive enough to leave it switched off.

The field has been cut today

The Grass is Greener

The grass is greener on the other side of the fence, err no the grass is a rubbish crop  this year which ever field you are standing in, our meadow still hasn’t been mown, the weather has not been fit, looking at last years blog post on the topic I can see that last year it was cut on the 24th of August, and that was a month later than the previous year, 2006, at this rate in a few years time, Simon the farmer will be hanging tinsel and mistletoe  in the cab of the tractor when haymaking.

But it is no joke, the best they can hope for now is making silage not hay and that will be of dubious quality, meadow grass doesn’t stand around patiently waiting to be mown, this years poor summer grass has seeded and started to die back whilst other scraggy grass is forcing up through it, making a dense thatch of grasses and weeds; if your dogs coat has ever become matted you’ll perhaps know what I mean, it’s the nearest I can think of to describe it. Not only has Simon got our 3 acres* to cut but another 12 of his own and one of his fellow farmers has only managed to get  enough fodder off his land to last him till the end of October, this is a serious and expensive matter (Simon’s dad, long since retired from farming, can’t sleep at night for worrying about it.)

The usual seasonal  farming routine is shot to ribbons, It’s been so wet that on Simons farm, the heap in the ‘muck midden’ is nearly as high as the barn, this should be spread on the fields, but its just too wet, the tractors will either trash the turf leaving large water filled scars across the fields, or  the machines will get bogged down, its not good, as other bloggers will tell you, and I wouldn’t ask Simon about the price of feed stuffs and fertilizers, he’s not a happy man.

* pasture needs managing, as we have no livestock our neighbour ‘cuts and mucks’ the field for us each year,he gets the hay we get the field looked after, it works well for both of us.

Wet Wet Wet

Well at least the fish are happy; we had 48mm of rain yesterday and a further 33mm since midnight, granted most of that was tattooed upon the roof around three am, it woke me, but it’s  been dry most of the day.

The drive into the yard continues to crumble under the force of the water, great deltas of silt and gravel and neatly stacked piles of leaves are all that left in the yard this morning.

The outdoor tomatoes look like they would like to book a week away in Spain or Greece.

Mr Uhdd is staying in a tent in Scotland with Tom,(fortunately it isn’t raining up there) he ran the Ben Nevis fell race today, up and down in 2:06, not quite the time he wanted, but there was no more to give; Mr and Mrs Laid back runner are with them and he met  up with my fellow blogger Sarah from Aberdeen, her man was running too.  Usually we all go to Fort William for a few days, however this year the race has fallen so that the boys are already back at school and Joe declared, (he is not as keen a traveler as Tom) that he did not want to spend 16 hr of a weekend in a car so we have stayed at home, the last I heard they were going for an Indian meal, *sigh* I’ll go and look what we have in the fridge.

Born to Run

Lurcher racing at the country show, you can read the musings of a lurcher here

I know little about this sport, save to tell you it was a lure they were chasing and not a hare; but it would seem from this photo that it important to propel your dog off the start line, (take the dogs out of the shot and you could be forgiven for thinking they are playing crown green bowls.)

There was such a lot to see we couldn’t cover it all, but I could kick myself though, for missing out on the ferret racing and I only got to see a little of ‘Cyril the Squirrel and his Racing Terriers’. I think it is time to show you the photograph that I didn’t get, it’s supposed to be of one the fearless terriers jumping through a hoop of fire, the dog was fast and I was a bit slow with the shutter finger, I missed it and the dog didn’t do an encore.

Cyril invited children to bring their dogs into the arena, for a race, it was pandemonium and impossible to do justice to in a photograph first he had the dogs chasing a lure in one direction

Then he would change direction, mayhem ensued, people and dogs in every direction

Everyone seemed to get their dog and child back in the end.

A Bird in the Hand

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so the saying goes

The falconry display at the Country Fair was very good indeed, it was by CJ’s birds of prey

I would never have thought a bird of prey could be such a delicate shade of peach, quite a nice colour to decorate the bathroom, you could stride into your local branch of B&Q  bird in hand and ask them to mix a  2 litre tin of paint ‘just this shade please; egg shell finish, obviously .’

If this were my ear I am not sure I would want it quite so close to this beak

  

It might end up a little more than pierced

I think when we watch a display like this, we are almost waiting for something to go wrong, the fact that the birds are in essence wild and the nature of the work means the handler has to let go, and let the bird fly free. Will it come back? do as it’s been trained? or will it take wing off over Chatsworth house, never to be seen again or perhaps  more entertainingly for as blood thirsty crowd;  take out someone’s pet West Highland terrier, from the edge of the arena, fly to the top of the nearest tree and have a raptor lunch, as  little wisps of coarse white dog fur drift across the arena, there can be no doubt that this  Steppe eagle is capable of doing such a thing, for goodness sake look at the legs on it, powerful or what. A ‘toy’ breed of dog would be a mere snack,  a small deer main course, not sure what the Duke would make of that.

That’s why the handler kept the eagle on a line  (it was the birds first ‘flying’ performance at a show)

Falconry is an ancient sport, and some of its terms have entered the English language, here the eagle is displaying a defensive/protective pose, known a  ‘mantle‘ as in, cloak, mantelpiece or gas mantle. (see, as educational as the Archers this blog, an every day tale of country folk.)

    

If  I was going to hold one of these birds, I’d want an extra long gauntlet thank you very much, just as well they have sold out of my size then.

I leave you with a couple more shots of this majestic beast, no wonder they are symbols of power.

  

Open mouth insert foot

What you don’t want to hear your dentist say, as he’s preparing  to do a root canal procedure and he accidentally knocks the tray of implements on the floor.

Opps, so sorry about that, I am having such a bad day!

Actually as root canal treatments go, it was a piece of of sugar free cake, as he had knocked out the infection in the tooth and put a temporary dressing in it two days before I went on holiday. Afterwards we had a laugh about his choice of words, he said it was just as well I was a calm patient, little does he know I get plenty of practice at appearing calm when nothing is further from the truth.

Also on my travels today I saw a young women, about twenty something I suppose, with a butterfly (wing span of about 4 inches) tattooed across  her throat; how attractive is that going to look when she is about sixty and somewhat more wrinkled and saggy than she is now? I could never have a tattoo, I can’t even chose a stair carpet that I am not bored of before it has worn out; let alone something ‘decorative’ and indelible, that I have to spend the rest of my life with.

On the subject of butterflies, does anyone know what species this is? spotted in Devon, the wings were white on the outside and this lovely ‘Persil’ blue/white on the inside, very pretty.

Landscape

Once home from our holidays, I had to get out again, up on to the moor;

 

much as I enjoy the Devon scenery, after a while I find the narrow high sided  lanes and wooded paths a bit claustrophobic, so for me it’s always good to get back to my ‘uphill’ world, this landscape feels so right.

The heather is in full bloom and the bees working it made much more amiable companions than the grumpy wasps on the beach last week, aren’t bees amazing? they do their little waggle dance and make a bee line for the heather, pollinate the flowers, harvest the nectar and whiz off back to their hives, we humans we think we are so clever,  we’re so wrong.

There are still some winberries  ( bilberries or blaeberries depending on the ‘local’ name) around, although you would have to be determined to find enough for a pie

I spent a good while up here, waiting for the clouds to thin out and give me the shot I had in mind, but it wasn’t to be and it really didn’t matter, I can come back another day. But I realised whilst I was waiting, that from here I could see four of the five houses I have ever lived in, including the one I was born in. And here is just so me; as the Scots say, it’s not ‘where I stay, but where I belong.’

 

It brought to mind a conversation I had with an elderly lady, I asked her if her husband had been born in the village ‘Yes’ she replied ‘although he was more quarried from it, than born in it.’ I think I now know what she means.

Wood and Willow

Tom is a keen cricketer, he plays at school and for the village team; unfortunately for Tom, his Mum and Dad aren’t as up to speed with this very British game as he would like, but luckily his Grandma is, and she eagerly awaits news of the results of any fixtures. She played cricket at school, because there weren’t enough boys to make up a team, family legend has it that she fell down a flight of steps, because she had the pads on upside down, but it did nothing to put her off cricket especially village cricket, it seems once it’s in your blood, cricket is for keeps.

 

One of the problems of playing cricket up in the hills

is the lack of a flat pitch, here are the boys, notice the batsman appears to have no feet, this is because this pitch is best described as ‘terraced’, he’s way down the hill.

  

But even from the nets the view is green and pleasant, it’s rather a nice place to spend a sunny Sunday morning.

Double delight

 

This evening at 8:30. Why is it always lighter  on the ‘inside’  of the rainbow? the answer may be in here but I’ve yet to read it all; as this is a post it in the moment sort of post, you will have to work it out for yourselves.

One of my favourite painters, Joseph Wright of Derby, I have written about him before,  must have been a bit quick with the brush, seeing as he didn’t have a digital camera in 1794